


Deals by Starlight

by Kamary



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Lamps, Post True Pacifist Ending, Spoilers - No Mercy Route, Timeline Discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 17:46:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5099912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamary/pseuds/Kamary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It was the lamp. I realized, when I thought about the lamp, that you had to have known what exact size I was to put one there in advanced."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deals by Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> Why is it that everything I touch gets darker? This was supposed to be lighthearted fluff.

There are some things that you can’t talk to anyone about. More likely than not, they’ll ask if you have a fever and forget about it by the next day. That was just how the timeline corrects itself. Sometimes you feel like spilling your heart out to one of them, telling them how many times you’ve died, and cry. But you can’t. Some people accept the news better than others. Asgore tooks it like a heavy burden. Undyne laughs and asks if you were becoming an anime. Even Alphys asks to take some blood tests. But in the end, they always forget.

Your mother, Toriel, was the one that took it the worst. She always thought you were sick. She would make sure you went to bed and pepper you with so much healing energy that you passed out from the efforts your body made to repair itself. There was a bitter sense of annoyance when you woke up from your healing induced sleep only for Toriel to scold you for not doing your homework.

The only person you could talk to was Sans. The problem was that you didn’t get much time to talk with just Sans. If you tried to bring it up around others, he’d pretend not to understand. He was almost always working (paying for all the property damage Papyrus caused was not cheap) or asleep. You didn’t blame him, but you wished you could talk.

Even when you did get time with him alone, there were some things he wouldn’t talk about. If you talked about what it felt like to die, he would give you a look that you thought looked guilty. You had no memory of him killing you, so you didn’t understand. Talking about resetting only seemed to upset him, as if he thought you were actually going to do it. You weren’t. Not yet, at least.

It took you a long time to find the perfect overlap between times you could talk and subjects you could talk about. You felt like a little detective, listing all the subjects that you’d brought up and the ones that got bad reactions out of him. Eventually you pieced together something, something you hadn’t realized at first.

Monsters had a strange obsession with the stars. You think it was because most of them struggled with the sun. It was too bright, and most of them lived in the dark too long. But the stars were beautiful and somewhat familiar. After wanting to reach the surface for so long, they seemed to be a bit homesick for the darkness of the underground. Night and stars gave a perfect mix of both the surface and their former home.

You climbed out your window and up onto your roof. You didn’t know why Sans liked to be up here so bad. Often times when he said he was going home, he was here. Sometimes he was asleep, but you’d found him up here awake a few times in the past. It occurred to you he was sitting above your window for a reason, he was trying to make sure you were safe. Or at least you thought that was what you he was doing. A feeling in the back of your head told you he was making sure people were safe from you.

When you reached the roof, he was already awake, staring at the stars like he always was. He wasn’t surprised to feel you sit next to him, but he did look away from the stars.

“what’s up, kid? have a bad dream?”

You shook your head. Since you found out Sans was here at least two nights a week made you feel more at ease. You didn’t have nightmares as often and you actually felt safe with your window open. After receiving threats at the embassy, you didn’t feel safe in your own house anymore. But Sans made you feel safe, even when he got a bit creepy.

“No,” you explained. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“we talk every day. family diners, remember?” His tone was as light and lazy as ever, but you knew he was a little uneasy. You two talked often, but private talks were always about serious matters.

He was at your house often. Half of the time he lived with Papyrus, the other half he was hanging out with Toriel. You were pretty sure he liked her, and you knew she liked him too, but neither of them did anything about it. Or maybe they were together and you didn’t notice. They were both ancient monsters, Toriel due to being a boss monster who could no longer age, and Sans due to, well, everything. It was actually his age that made you come up here more than anything. While you might love and work well with them, you could never truly understand the thoughts of a monster that has been alive for so long.

“Sans.” Your tone was serious. “What was I like the first time that you met me?”

He gave you a surprised look before settling back into a calm demeanor.

“hate to tell you kid, but you were there. how about you tell me?”

You shake your head. This talk isn’t going to work if he doesn’t take you seriously. “The more I think about it, the more I realize the first time that I met you wasn’t the first time you met me. There’s no way that it could be and for you to already know so much about me.”

“and how do you figure that?”

“It was the lamp. I realized, when I thought about the lamp, that you had to have known what exact size I was to put one there in advanced. It was perfectly me shaped. You must have known me so well to create something I could hide perfectly behind. Being you, I have no doubt you made it as close to my size as possible as a joke. It was rather funny. But it was that inconveniently placed lamp-“ You paused for laughs.

“stick to your day job kid.”

Someday you were going to get serious Sans to laugh, but alas, that day was not today. “That made me realize that you’ve done this before. So many times, actually. And I hadn’t. I’ve only reset once. Which makes me realize… Sans, how long have you been stuck in this cycle?”

Sans laughs without a trace of bitterness, but you think that he’s not being honest with you. He’s had years to hide how jaded he’s become. You still have a lot to learn before you can properly read him.

“first off, you have to realize that i don’t move through time the way that you do. i don’t have to choose when to go back. i won’t give you the full explanation, but if you screw with time, time screws you right back.”

You give a knowing nod and encourage him to go on.

“i can’t really remember the first world anymore. there’s been a lot. thousands maybe? point is, even though we’re both messing with time, we aren’t doing it in the same order.” You’d figured that already, but having it said to you sends a shiver up your spine. “i learned a lot of tricks along the way. hopefully ones you never have to learn. you’re a good kid, frisk. you play inside the rules. i didn’t used to.”

You scrunch up your brow and look at him questioningly. You’re many things, but you don’t always obey the rules. You took more than one monster candy, after all.

“i used to exploit that i already knew was going to happen. it works sometimes, but others it causes ripples that do damage to the world. the core will break down or the castle will collapse. after a time you learn what you can and can’t do with this power. bringing a lamp for you to hide behind, i can do, but i can’t, let’s say, kill you the moment i notice you have dust on your hand, because that’s not something the first sans would have done. he’d have waited until he saw no light in your before he struck.”

There’s a sort of cold, ruthlessness in his words that works a shiver up your spine. You pulled your arms around yourself, aware of what him using that tone means but not willing to admit what it was. No, you have to. You came up here for answers, and that wasn’t just limited to answers about him. You take in a breath.

“I killed everyone once, didn’t I?”

Sans nods and you feel your heart drop. You feel sick, knowing a version of you would do it, that I might be your future too.

“And, you can’t do anything about it because of your promise to Mom.” Another nod. “And so I go on and I…”

You feel absolutely sick. You could almost see it. Cutting down Papyrus, wearing down Undyne, busting Mettaton, ripping the petals off Asriel… Sans couldn’t do anything until the point at which he judged you. It takes effort not to cry. You don’t cry because you’re sad. You want to cry because it’s frustrating.

“And at the end of the line…”

“i kill you and i kill you until you learn enough about me to kill me. just how it goes kid. sorry you had to find out this way. asking questions about future you and alternate realities really isn’t any fun, is it?”

You shake your head.

“I’m glad you told me, though.”

Without any brows, he was forced to open one eye socket very widely to create a quizzical expression.

“For a long time, I thought that it wouldn’t be so bad if I reset, but now I know, sometime when I reset, I’ll be a killer, so I don’t. I’ll go as long as I can without resetting, cause I don’t want to be that person.”

“it’s sweet of you to say that, kid, but those frisks don’t have to be you.”

You shake your head. “I can’t separate myself from their actions. I have to take responsibility for them. After all, I’m a Frisk too. Someday I’ll get angry or sad, or I’ll just stop feeling and I’ll do it. I would say to kill me now and stop it, but we know that won’t work.”

Even if you really wanted to die, you were too determined to stay dead. Sans seems to understand too. He shook his head, but you knew he knew it too.

“i can’t imagine a kid as sweet as you becoming a killer.”

“And I can’t imagine a skeleton as fun as you killing me, but both things will happen. And for the record, thank you. I know future me won’t like it, but thank you for trying to stop me. I just wish you could do it sooner.”

“don’t worry about it.”

“And if I try to trick you, to make you think I did it all in self defense on can be good again, I want you to promise me you won’t spare me.”

Sans shakes his head. “you don’t need to tell me kid. another frisk already did. we’ve had this talk before. not the exact same, but you always seem to figure out the bad timelines. It wasn’t here or now, but you’ll eventually forget this time and tell me to kill you if you pretend to spare me.”

You sigh in relief. It sounded like there were a lot more good yous to go through before you go to the bad.

“you know kid, having already live through everything so many times, it makes life boring. People say and do the same things, they never change. But one things always changes. you never cease to surprise me, kid.”

You laugh softly, like this heavy talk hadn’t happened, when he reaches over and ruffles your hair.

“You too. I’m glad you’re here. I’m so glad someone understands.”

You lean away from his hand and look at the sky. The stars too, never changes, at least not all that noticeably for you, but you never really get bored of it. Hopefully, you can think of this world and your friends the same way. Boredom is an awful reason to go on a massacre.


End file.
